viper

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. Any of several venomous Old World snakes of the family Viperidae, having a single pair of long, hollow fangs and a thick, heavy body. Also called adder2.

n. A pit viper.

n. A venomous or supposedly venomous snake.

n. A person regarded as malicious or treacherous.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A poisonous snake in the family Viperidae.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. Any one of numerous species of Old World venomous snakes belonging to Vipera, Clotho, Daboia, and other genera of the family Viperidæ.

n. A dangerous, treacherous, or malignant person.

n. Loosely, any venomous or presumed venomous snake.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. A venomous snake of the family Viperidæ: originally and especially applied to the only serpent of this kind occurring in the greater part of Europe, Vipera communis Or Pelias beruts.

n. Any venomous serpent except a rattlesnake; a viperine; a cobriform and not crotali form serpent, as a cobra, asp, or adder; also, loosely, any serpent that is venomous, or supposed to be so; a dangerous, repulsive, or ugly snake.

n. In heraldry, a serpent used as a bearing, some writers avoid the word serpent and use viper instead, there being no difference in the representations.

Though the viper is viviparous (from which "vi-per" is derived), yet during gestation, the young are included in eggs, which break at the birth [Bochart]; however, metaphors often combine things without representing everything to the life.

MESERVE: In eight of the nation's largest cities, the Transportation Security Administration is deploying its so-called viper teams, made up of canine explosive detection units, air marshals and behavioral observation specialists.

The rare Iranian spider-tailed viper (Pseudocerastes urarachnoides) waggles a fake "spider"—actually a fleshy lure with leg-like scales at the tip of its tail—to tempt birds within striking distance. See video here:https://www.instagram.com/p/BBbbagXifRu/

"One night last year in the king crab season, a 100-foot rogue wave with a 30-foot whitewater 'viper' slammed into Time Bandit. That frightened me beyond the measure of I-thought-we-were-done-for."—Johnathan and Andy Hillstrand with Malcolm MacPherson, Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs, 153